


In Every Universe there Is

by In_agony_and_ecstasy



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Ice Skating AU, M/M, Priest AU, Trans Male Character, Vampire AU, Youtuber AU, angel au, circus AU, trans!jean, vampire!Marco
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-21 04:37:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4815347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/In_agony_and_ecstasy/pseuds/In_agony_and_ecstasy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a collection of Jeanmarco one shots. None of them belong in the same universe, and they're not in any chronological order. Some of them will make you smile, some will make you laugh. Some of them will make you laugh at Jean. A few will be heart-breaking or bittersweet. But they're all the ways Jean and Marco exist together in different universes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Circus AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this one shot Marco is a passionate animal rights activists, who finds himself working at a circus as an animal caretaker after a drunken escapade. From afar, he gazes at the handsome acrobat named Jean. If only they could speak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Marco is an animal rights activist who wants to free the animals, and in the process meets acrobat!Jean.

Never in my life had I ever seen someone move like him. He reminded me of a humming bird, quick and efficient, coiled and graceful as he swung from the different tight ropes and flipped in the air. The crowd cheered, but his gaze was zeroed in on the next rope. He existed in another world then, on a different plane of existence alongside his ethereal partner with silky black hair and a body equally as lithe. 

I’d gotten a job here for the animals, of course. My parents had taken me to the circus when I was young, and I’d seen how the animals loathed this place. I’d nearly forgotten all about it until the night I, Marco Bodt, a nearly incapacitated drunk biology student decided I was going to sneak into the animal tent and free them. It made me laugh now, thinking about Rose, the lion, and Maria, the elephant being freed. They’d have made it as far as the freeway with me, before I’d have had to turn right back around and return them. Either that, or get arrested for one of the world’s greatest drunken crimes. 

But I’d seen him here that night, and I had stood in this very spot, peering through the hung curtains the animals entered through at him. In that moment I couldn’t pull my gaze away from him, as I shrunk internally back to the boy I was when I first came to the circus, and every color had been brighter and every height higher, and ever cheer louder. When everything in the world had been beautiful instead of cruel, and animals were just animals, and two boys holding hands were just two boys holding hands, and love was just love. 

Of course since that night the same atmosphere of magic hadn’t quite returned. If I could talk to him, maybe. If I had a chance. But he was with her, and I’d never even spoken to him. Just the same, he was nice to look at.

…

The night was hovering close to the horizon. All the animals had performed and were in their stables, kennels, and cages for the night. 

Pulling my gloves off, I tossed them on the ground, ready to retreat to the nearest bathroom and clean up. My hands were covered in dirt from cleaning the monkeys’ cages earlier that day. I couldn’t tell the difference between splattered mud and my freckles. My short black hair was ratted, and my forehead itched with caked-on sweat. The hat I was required to wear shielded my eyes from the sun, but it was annoying in every other way. 

As I stepped out of the tent, a ruffling sound coming from the other side of the tent, in the back near the horse stables caught my ears’ attention. I tilted my head up, wondering if I’d woken up any of the animals. 

“Shhh,” someone hissed. 

I swung around, prepared to see a customer trying to sneak into the back and get an up-close peek at the animals. It happened from time to time. Little kids especially liked to go off exploring around the circus grounds, and it was all too easy to slide underneath the tents.

But it wasn’t a random costumer or child. It was a man, crouched down and peering at Rose through the cage’s bars, in an all-black leotard and jacket thrown over his broad shoulders. His hair was blond, longer on top, but now that I was so close to him I could see that the buzzed portions of his hair were much darker. Up close, his eyes were hazel, almost gold like the torches that circled the circus ring during performances.

“Jean?” I blurted, as if I knew him. I’d only ever seen that name on bulletin boards and inside pamphlets. 

He startled and stood up, his body twisted around like he was going to dart out, but then he saw my uniform shirt. Apparently relieved that I was an employee, but not a performer, he sighed.

“It’s just you,” he responded.

“Who?” I asked, sounding ridiculous because obviously he meant me and obviously I knew who I was. But what I meant was, who was I to him? What did he mean, it was “just you”? Did he know me the way I knew him? From afar, and constantly out of reach? I wished. 

“You take care of the animals,” he said. That was who I was to him. The animal caretaker. 

I nodded, like this was new information to me.

He smiled. “You know how unhappy they were before you showed up?”

I shook my head, even though this wasn’t new information either.

“What’s your name?” 

“Marco.”

“Do you mind if I…hang around a while? I like these guys more than the audience.”

I chuckled and nodded at him. I had been ready to go home, but now that he was here I’d find something to keep myself busy with.

“You’re in the show, right?” I asked, as if the ring leader didn’t announce his name through a microphone every single performance every single weekend. 

He nodded. “Acrobat, aerial artist.”

“And your girlfriend? What’s her name?” 

He perked his head up, pulling his hand out of the cage. I hadn’t even noticed he’d slid his arm through the bars. My eyebrows shot up when I realized he’d been petting Rose. She didn’t even flinch. Neither did he. How long had he been sneaking in here? She was already used to him. It probably shouldn’t have surprised me that a man willing to fling himself into the air, ignoring gravity, wouldn’t be afraid to pet a tame lion either. 

“What – Oh. God, that rumor’s still going around?”

I shrugged, trying not to smile, trying not to give away that something warm and glorious had just burst inside of me. I really believed they were together. Everyone did. “Well, I’m new and it’s all I’ve heard so…yeah. I guess.”

Jean shook his head, returning his attention to Rose. The two of them had the same eyes. Beautiful, golden, fearless eyes. “Her name’s Mikasa.”

“Oh,” I mumbled, feeling awkward as I pulled up a stool to sit beside Rose’s cage and watch over them. If he got mauled because of carelessly placing his hand I’d be more than fired. “Well, you two look beautiful up there. I watch every show.”

“Really?” 

I nodded. He looked genuinely surprised. 

“Well, I have to go. But thanks for taking care of them. They get so much shit from the crowd and it’s like, you can’t even yell at them for it because they’re paying to see them.”

“I know what you mean.” Through every show my heart ached, watching the animals go through the motions. 

Jean stood to leave, and I watched him head toward the front of the tent. At the last second he looked over his shoulder at me. “You don’t mind if I come back tomorrow? It’d be nice to not have to sneak in anymore. Gets pretty annoying hopping the fence.”

He gestured to the makeshift fence through the tent doors. It was the kind of neon orange, plastic netting used to surround construction sights, but it kept away some of the lazier gawkers. 

“Anytime,” I breathed, wishing already that it was tomorrow night. 

Again he smiled, crooked and radiant and making my heart pound the way it did whenever he took an especially high leap and for a moment, just one tiny fraction of a second I thought he’d plummet to the earth, but then – no, he always kept flying. 

“Thanks, Marco.”


	2. Angel AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this one shot, Marco and Jean both have a body part to flatten out, but Marco's is heavenly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Actual Angel!Marco and Trans!Jean who's very concerned about Marco's unsafe binding practices (more than he's concerned that Marco has wings.)

The moment I woke up, I knew something about Jean was off. A wave of panic washed over me as I considered everything I could have said in my sleep, or if maybe I’d accidentally kicked him, or even if he just regretted letting me spend the night. We’d been friends long enough now that I thought we were past the awkward, obligatory polite distance of acquaintances, but Jean was somewhat of an introvert. 

I sat up in his bed, trying not to grin at the smell of him on his sheets and the sight of his bedroom surrounding me. Every night I went to bed on my own, I had imagined what it would be like to share this bed with him. Sleep beside him, and be close to him the way past boyfriends of his had. I knew that could never be, we could never be intimate or even close, but this wasn’t so far behind. So I had to sleep with my clothes on, big deal. He’d slept in his boxers and I’d been inches away from his smooth, warm skin all night.

To say the least, I barely slept.

I felt more awake than I’d ever been.

But Jean wasn’t in bed anymore, and the moment I heard him knock on his own bedroom door, that same panic filled up my lungs. My breaths were quick and short. A feather rested on his pillow. How hadn’t I noticed it before?

“Yes?” I asked.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

My hand shook as I reached for the feather and held it in my hand. “Of course.” My voice had weakened.

Jean stepped in the room. He shut the door behind him, and pressed his back up against it. His eyes landed on the sight of me holding the feather.

“We need to talk,” he said.

I swallowed, and felt like I was choking. “About?”

“Ace bandages Marco? Really?”

“What?” I blurted.

“And to bed?” he snapped, pointing at the mattress. 

“Um, I don’t know what you mean,” I lied, and _oh_ , it was so obvious. Angels were _bad_ liars by nature. 

He rolled his eyes. “Your wings, Marco! You’re _destroying_ them! I don’t get why you’d – did I make you feel like you had to bind? Even after I took my own binder off yesterday?”

His binder lay on the floor, and we both glanced at it. When he’d confessed to me that he was trans, I’d almost told him then. We both had body parts we’d rather not let people see, after all, and they both had to be flattened out.

Only mine was other-worldly. I had an obligation to heaven to hide them, and protect Jean from knowing my true purpose for walking into his life: Designated first-time guardian angel. When I’d gotten the assignment, I hadn’t known why Jean would need me in his life. But when he’d told me he was trans a few months ago, I understood. This boy needed more than the occasional miracle and I was stocked full of them. 

“How did you find out?” I asked.

He sighed. “Your shirt was rucked up in your sleep. I saw it this morning. All your feathers were falling out.”

“Aren’t you…wondering why I…? Have…? Wings…?” 

His features softened and he looked away from me now. “Well, yeah. But I mean, you didn’t wonder why I had tits, so…” 

“So you just thought, fuck it, my best friend has wings?” 

He laughed at this, and rubbed the back of his neck. “All I’m saying is…I don’t want to treat you like you’re a freak because, you know, you have a body part I didn’t expect you to have.”

I smiled at him. Very rarely was Jean ever so… _open_. He preferred to be a closed book, and I hardly ever got to skim his pages, let alone read them.

“Thank you,” was all I could say. I’d explain right then why I had them, but it was against the rules.

“Now we have to find a way to bind them that won’t hurt you.”

He walked toward me, and he gestured for me to slip my shirt off. At first I hesitated, and my breath hitched. No one had ever seen them, or rather, I’d never let anyone. It felt wrong, but I tossed my shirt off anyway. Jean began untying the bandages. He tossed them on the floor when he was done.

My poor wings stretched out, white feathers reaching for the walls on either side of me. They ached from the night spent tied to my back. I’d slept on my stomach like I always did, but that didn’t help much.

Jean reached out to touch them, and I could see the awe in his expression now. He wouldn’t ask me about my wings, because he didn’t like being asked about his body either, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t curious. His hands slid up the velvety span of one wing, threading through my feathers and a shudder ran down my spine. I sighed, hummed, almost moaned at his soft caress. I loved the feeling of it. 

“God, you’re – Marco, you’re kinda…”

“Hmmm?” I hummed, through foggy thoughts of what it’d be like to arch my wings around him.

“You’re beautiful.”

But so was he, I thought.

“Thank you.”

“Just…just leave them out for now, okay? We’ll bind them later. They – they shouldn’t be covered up right away.”

He said this out of concern for my health, but I knew he wanted to see them and I wanted him to keep looking, keep touching. 

“Okay.”

He didn’t respond. But his hands slid up the span of them until his hands met the base, and his fingers brushed my shoulder blades where my wings met them. He held me.

“Tonight, I’ll take you flying,” I whispered, and his eyes widened with awe again.


	3. Priest AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this one shot Marco must choose between serving God like he promised, and leaving the church to be with Jean.

I had thought the church had cleared out, but footsteps – familiar footsteps, after all these years – had padded up beside the pews behind me. He sat down near me, but not close enough to interrupt my praying, and the pew creaked beneath his weight. I knew if I looked up, I’d see familiar golden eyes accented with the flickering candles I’d lit on the pedestal and piano. The crow’s-feet surrounding those eyes would be laced with worry, concern, and the same smoldering ache I’d seen in them for years. 

We had gotten so old. We’d managed for so long. And always, I had stayed true to my promise, true to the God I knew was out there somewhere, somehow, understanding every moment of my restrain. 

That was what I had to believe.

I had to believe that when Jean stepped into my life –

Young and strong, and always, always daring the church to believe that God wouldn’t punish someone for this, God wouldn’t judge someone for that, God wouldn’t deny someone’s right to pray for this, or give in to this…Always challenging the church to remember it’s values, why we lived to serve God in the first place – 

He must have had a plan for us. He must have had a reason for this longing inside of me.

God had always been there for me, but I had expected Him to be. He was there for me, and I was there for Him; that was the deal. At sixteen I’d gotten in that car accident, and my heart had stopped and my mind had filled with breathtaking light and I had known, that if I was to live then it would be forever in His debt. 

So His presence beside me throughout my life, as my black hair had turned gray, and my freckles had faded, and my eyes had lined with weariness, had never startled me. 

But Jean had come into my life like the car I’d collided with. Brash and abrupt, flipping every understanding I had of my life upside down. When my mother died, I prayed to God while Jean held my hand. When a tornado devastated our town, Jean volunteered to clean up the city by my side. And when I denied him the first time he tried to sway me to leave the church, he backed away and never spoke of it again. I was still fighting every day to forgive him for that. To forgive him for respecting my wishes while always accompanying me. How dare he?

If only he’d been as stubborn with me as he was with other parishioners and church-goers.

Now, my hands laced together around a cross tightened. Tears streamed down my face as I begged forgiveness for the one and only choice I’d ever made against the church. I’d lived a life without regret – but that was because I never risked regret to begin with. And that was its own kind of regret, after all. I was condemned to wonder for the rest of my life: What could have been? How could this have been different? Could I have loved him when I was young? 

“You know what I believe,” Jean said now, trying to sound casual, as if we’d been having a conversation this whole time. 

I turned to face him. He was sitting sideways in the pews. His fingers threaded through the pages of the bible, and they collapsed like a deck of cards. But the paper in them was like newspaper, and smelled much older. I’d grown so familiar with the weight of the bible, the size of it, the smell and sound of it thudding against my hardwood floor at night when I’d fallen asleep while reading – searching for answers and usually finding them.

“I do,” I said to him, managing a smile somehow. Always smiling when he was there, because he always gave me a reason to.

Jean’s fingers combed through his hair now turning white around the ears instead of brown. His hair had been blond, but it paled more every day.

“He wouldn’t want you to be unhappy. He wouldn’t want you to resent the life he’d granted you,” Jean said, for the second time. By the caution in his voice, and all his fiddling with the bible and his hair, I knew he was nervous to repeat himself. He hadn’t said these words to me since we were young, since we’d first discovered our feelings for each other. “He wouldn’t be disappointed in you. Even priests have their own lives to live.”

We were quiet for a moment. Jean winced, as if he thought he’d lost this argument. He opened his mouth again, unwilling to give up just yet, but I cut him off.

“I’ve made my decision.”

His head perked up, and his eyes were wide and full of light like the day I met him. They were never like that anymore. He didn’t sleep enough.

“You have?”

“I don’t like to think of it as choosing between you and Him,” I explained, and he nodded, too eagerly, “but I think it’s time to put you first, for a change.”

Even saying it made me feel guilty, but I repeated Jean’s words in my head. He believed God forgave, God understood, and I believed in him as much as I believed in God. So it must be true.

Jean slid closer to me on the pew, and tentatively, reached for my hand. Our fingers laced, and I let my body relax against his, leaning against his shoulder. He placed a kiss on my forehead, and I knew I wouldn’t regret my decision.


	4. Ice Skater AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this one shot Jean is a hockey player who becomes enamored by the grace of Marco's ice skating.

I’ve been told one thing about ice since I was old enough to wear ice skates: Ice is brutal, skating is brutal, hockey is brutal, and if I was going to be on the ice, wearing ice skates, playing hockey, I had to be too. I had been trained to expect harsh blows and painful falls and bruises the size of melons and abs cut like steel from rocketing all over the rink. I had scars, I had aches and pains that never left, and once I’d played a whole game with a broken rib without even realizing it.

This was supposed to be brutal.

But as my teammates piled into the arena and I sat at the player’s bench in full gear, I gazed at him. He’d have to leave in a few minutes. The Coach had reserved the rink for us weeks ago when he’d learned that our own rink would be going through renovations. But for now, while the rest of the team was still getting their gear on and Coach was barking orders at each of them, he could skate.

Well, he could _glide_ , and _float_ , and _twirl_ and _dance_ but it was hardly just skating. The way his limbs reached on and his head threw back as if he had no reason to fear falling or crashing had me wishing I could get on the ice and trail behind him, just to get a closer look. I didn’t have terms to describe his graceful motions. I had terms like _body-checking_ and _clipping_ and _head-butting_ and _roughing_. Words as cut and dry as I thought skating was.

He leapt off the ice, spinning, and I flinched. I’d never dare to do something like that. The only guys that ended up in the air in hockey had been thrown up by force. But his feet eased back on to the ice like feathers landing. His body was barely jostled, and he wore a grin like he was skating on clouds. He dashed past me, closer than he’d been before and his freckles came into view. His eyes glimmered under the harsh incandescent lighting but it only made him fuzzy at the edges, like a dream, or a hallucination in the middle of a blizzard.

As he passed he waved at me, probably because my jaw was in my lap and I hadn’t blinked for at least a minute. I blushed then, making my face and him the two warmest things in the room. Or at least, I bet he was warm. He didn’t look like he was capable of emitting anything other than rays of sunshine.

When the clock struck nine AM, he didn’t need to be asked to leave. He skated out of the rink onto a nearby bench. I was still staring at him as he unlaced his skates and reached for his sneakers.

“How long are you guys reserving the rink?” he asked. I jumped in my seat, realizing that the voice I was hearing was unfamiliar, and wasn’t coming from the direction of my other teammates. They were all still over near the entrance. I’d arrived early, intending to get a warm-up in before the rest of them. More and more these days I woke up with an itch to skate I couldn’t shake. I’d been coming to the rink earlier and earlier, and today had been especially irritating driving all the way out here. Now I thought I might do it for the rest of my life if I had to.

“Oh, uh…at least a month.”

“So, I should plan to arrive an hour earlier?” He was smiling at me, but I didn’t think it was to be polite like most people would smile at me for. He was a happy person, and the smile rested on his face like his cheeks were home.

“Uh, yeah. That’s a good idea.”

“What’s your name?”

“Jean.”

“I’m Marco. Sorry I hogged the rink.” He gestured to the ice, as if some part of his spirit was still out there skating and I’d be able to see it taking up all the room.

I shrugged, trying too hard to look indifferent. “No big deal.”

“If you want to practice next week, I’ll share the ice with you. Promise I’ll stay out of the way.”

He walked up to me then, just as all my teammates hopped onto the ice and began shredding it to pieces. A few of them called my name, yelling at me to get out there. A few of them knew the look on my face by heart, and started making kissing noises and cooing at Marco. He glanced at them, and I could feel my pulse in my ears. My blush was going to melt the ice.

But Marco didn’t comment, even though he couldn’t possibly misinterpret my friends’ message.

“Okay,” I told him, hoping he’d get out of here quick before any of them did anything especially embarrassing.

“I’ll see you then, I hope?” he asked, smiling as he walked toward the exit.

“I’ll be there,” I told him, I’d _so, so, so_ be there.


	5. Youtuber AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean meets Marco at a con for a date, and learns that Marco is a famous Youtuber.

According to his Grindr, he was about 5’10, with dark skin and an undercut parted down the middle. Plus those freckles I couldn’t stop staring at and the gorgeous smile he adorned in every selfie he’d texted me.

Scanning the convention center, however, I couldn’t find anyone that remotely resembled him. Of course, hordes of people were flocking from one stand to another, glancing at comics, and buying anime seasons, or fan art hanging from the walls. Over to the far left of the room, even tattoo artists were lined up, each with their own table and spreadsheets of tattoos for con-goers to choose from.

Maybe he was cosplaying, but wouldn’t he tell me?

Nearby, someone in head-to-toe Iron Man costume strode by, struggling with the weight of his costume. Three girls strutted past, each one of them dressed as one of the Power Puff Girls. I’d already seen half a dozen Jokers, and at least three Harlequins. These costumes were just a handful of the ones I could remember, let alone the dozens of other people dressed up as characters I didn’t recognize. He could be anybody.

But we’d agreed to meet here, on the cafeteria side of the convention center. All of the tables surrounding me were occupied by at least three people, and some of them as many as a dozen. Their chatter overwhelmed my thoughts, making it impossible to distinguish between any of the other nearby sounds, such as one specific stand playing music, and an announcer’s voice blasting through the overhead intercom. If Marco called my name, I doubted I’d hear.

This was his idea. I had plenty of friends who’d gone to comic-con but I, personally, had never been able to afford it. Besides that, I was a fan of many, but a relaxed fan in anything. I was an especially lazy fan, sticking to ordering merchandise off the internet and commissioning artists online for what I wanted.

My knuckles tapped against the tabletop as I waited. More than once I’d checked my phone, both hoping he’d texted me an explanation for his absence, and as an excuse to look like I wasn’t a loser at the con alone with nothing to do.

It was then, as I was checking my phone for perhaps the fiftieth time, that someone clunked down in the seat across from me.

He had on a visor, shading most of his face, and wore sunglasses the size of his face. His collar was popped, and if I wasn’t mistaken, this man was wearing makeup. His skin was dark, and the makeup over his face was pastier, making his skin seem paler than it was, but not naturally. It didn’t look right.

“Uh, hi?” I asked.

“Hi, Jean. Sorry I’m late.”

I jerked my head back, realizing abruptly that, oh, it was him. Duh. His makeup hid his freckles, and most of his face was hidden too, but after a second glance I recognized his square jaw, and when he spoke the shape of his teeth was familiar.

“Hey, Marco. Aren’t you, uh, warm in that?”

I gestured to his jacket and hat. He looked ridiculous, given the heat of the room from the lack of ventilation and high amount of moving bodies, which made me wonder about how he’d managed to look so cool in all the photos he’d sent me. Maybe he was nerdier, and dorkier, and more sheltered than I thought.

“What? Oh – yeah, a little.” He chuckled, and covered his mouth, embarrassed. His laugh was adorable. He didn’t have to be nervous or embarrassed around me, if that was what this was about. I couldn’t understand why he was so edgy. 

“You can take it off. We’ll sit here a while.”

He took off his glasses, before shaking his head. Just as he opened his mouth to say something, someone nearby squealed so loud my ears rang. Marco sighed, and turned the direction of the squeal as if it had been his name instead.

A girl, no older than fifteen and a couple other guys about the same age as her walked up to Marco.

“Can you sign my T-shirt!” the girl squealed.

And her friend, trying to look like he didn’t care but obviously did, added, “Me too, I mean, if you want.”

“Sure,” Marco said. His voice was light, but it felt forced.

I sat there gawking at him and the kids in shock, waiting for him to turn to me and explain but he didn’t. He listened to the three of them as they explained what big fans of his videos they were. The more they spoke, the more I felt like I wasn’t even there. Maybe this was an elaborate joke, and I had just missed all the hints.

But eventually, when they were done speaking and Marco was done thanking them, Marco said, “Can you guys keep quiet about me being here? I don’t want to be part of the con.”

Again he laughed, but he sounded stressed, even though I knew his frustration wasn’t specifically with them.

“Oh, of course!” the girl squealed again, and I glared at her, because she wasn’t doing the best job of laying low.

“Thank you,” Marco responded.

The three of them walked away, all of them talking about Marco and how they couldn’t believe they saw him here, and he was so nice, and they were so glad they had proof they’d seen him and so on…

Marco returned his attention to me. “Sorry about that. Sometimes I can go unnoticed, but at cons like this…I’m bound to see someone.”

“Um…what was that about?” I asked.

He stared at me, as if trying to figure out if I was serious, and when he realized I was he laughed. “You don’t know who I am?”

“Um, you’re Marco?”

He laughed again. “I’m a uh…pretty well-known Youtuber. I didn’t want you to know – some people try to date me just because of that, you know? But until now I didn’t know if I was successful and – it makes me really happy that you’re actually here for _me_.”

I nodded, glad I could be of service as always, but still feeling confused. “That’s why you’re dressed…like…”

“A freak? Yeah. I really wanted to go to this con with you…but maybe we should just get out of here before anyone else sees? I don’t want them to ruin our date.”

I shook my head before he’d even finished his sentence. I liked him too much for him to already think I had a problem with his… _Youtuber_ status. God, I was so sheltered. I should probably have known who he was, and maybe if I kept up with anything my friends liked and listened to music made after 1980 I would.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.

“You sure?” 

“Yeah. Take all that crap off. It won’t ruin our date.”

He smiled. “You _really_ sure?”

“Yeah. I mean, I better get used to it if I want to stick around, right?” If it meant I could keep dating him, I didn’t care _what_ I had to deal with.

He blushed, but took off his disguise. The two of us stood up, ready to attempt to face the con – and the potential ambush of fans – together.


	6. Vampire AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco is a vampire who winds up in the morgue. Jean, believing Marco is dead, is his mortician.

This wasn’t the first time I’d faked my death and gone to the morgue. This was, however, the first time I’d ever overheard the mortician speaking to his deceased patients.

“Jesus,” he’d said to a body on the metal table beside mine, “You’re eleven years old. Fucking eleven.”

My eyes had been shut for me, so I couldn’t watch him walking around. But his footsteps paced back and forth across the room. He’d fiddled with a lab coat, and washed his hands twice. Metal clanked against medal and I assumed he was preparing to begin dissecting my neighbor.

But then he said, “I – I’m sorry, Mina? Is it? I can’t work on you just yet, alright? You’re gonna have to spend the night like this, but don’t worry. I’ll work on you first thing tomorrow. It’s just, I already did one kid today.”

Mina didn’t respond, but the mortician sighed.

“Okay, I have this rule. I only make myself do one child autopsy a day. That’s fair, isn’t it? It’s not too bad in there anyway. You’ll be safe.”

Something slammed hard, and the wall behind me reverberated. He’d enclosed her in her temporary tomb, which only left me.

His breathing faltered as he stepped closer to me. I’d been holding my breath this whole time, but hearing him breathe made me want to too. Hearing his heartbeat pound inside his body, and the smell of type O blood flowing, made me feel alive enough to need to breathe.

“What’s your name, freckles?”

Some paper flopped against a clipboard, and the mortician tapped the board with a pen.

“Marco. Thirty one? Well, fuck, I thought you were like twenty.”

He had no idea. Every ten years I was forced to fake a suicide. Hanging was a reasonable choice, because no one ever got blamed for my death, but it was annoying and uncomfortable hanging like that until someone found me – which often took a while, since I lived alone and didn’t rot. Sometimes it took weeks for someone to realize I hadn’t paid my rent, or whatever it was.

Pretending that I’d swallowed some pills worked usually, however the EMCs might try to save me and pump my stomach or something. More than once I’d had to pretend they’d resuscitated me, because they were beginning to wonder why my body wasn’t in the state it should be and why my dead weight wasn’t prominent if I really was, in fact, dead. 

The easiest route – the one I usually chose if I wanted to get this over quick – was to call 911 and say, “I think I’m having a heart attack.” The ambulance always arrived just a minute or two too late. Plenty of people would comment on how suspicious it was – I was so young, I was so healthy or whatever, I had no history of heart problems, and so on. But people got bored of wondering why I’d died, and focused on the fact that I had, and that was that.

Then I ended up here in the morgue. This had gotten substantially easier to do in the last hundred years. Cutting off ties with the surrounding world had been hardest after the telephone had become a common household item, when moving away wasn’t a reasonable enough excuse to never speak to people again. There’d been mail before, but oh, letters got lost and address were written wrong… 

“A heart attack?” the mortician said, only just now coming across the same issue as the doctors. “You know I’m going have to try to figure out why, right? Someone who loves you is going to want an explanation. I don’t know why people think that’ll help but – I guess I can’t give them shit, you know. Thought being a mortician would give me some sense of peace with death.”

I wanted to tell him that it would be harder to find a sense of peace with living forever.

“But it doesn’t,” he said. And as if he realized where he was and what he was doing, he continued, “Well. I suppose I should get started.”

I braced myself for the scalpel to cut into my chest. If he started digging too deep, I’d have to scare the shit out of him and just pretend to come back to life. But usually, I found a way to escape before the mortician gutted me.

“Be right back,” he said, as he walked to the other side of the room. Metal scraped against a tray, and I knew he’d grabbed the scalpel.

But then a door opened, and someone said, “Jean?”

“Yeah?” the mortician – Jean, I liked that name – responded.

“It’s your lunch,” the man at the door said.

“Really? Oh – shit, you’re right.” He laughed. “Alright, thanks.”

The man at the door left and the door clicked shut. 

“Sorry, Marco,” Jean said, “I won’t be long.”

Jean made his way toward the door, and as soon as the door slammed I leapt off the table. I was in a hospital gown, but I knew my belongings would be in a bag in a cubby or something nearby. I began searching the room, darting from one wall to the other. Standing on my toes to see on top of cupboards, and within a closet, and in the drawers near the sink.

But I didn’t find any of _my_ belongings. Instead, I found Jean’s wallet, keys, and jacket. Despite myself, I wanted to know more about the mortician who spoke to the dead. I bit my lip debating internally whether or not to snoop, and then decided that as a vampire, I had no right claim any sense of ethics.

Thumbing through his wallet, I found a picture of his mom – I thought, anyway – in there, warn and torn. On the back read a date. He had a gym membership card, and a dentist appointment coming up written on a notecard. He was handsome, blond with amber eyes and strong features. He was twenty four. In one jacket pocket a pair of gloves were tucked away, a prescription bottle for Xanax, a stress ball, and contact lens cases. On his keys, he had a lucky rabit’s foot, a cross, and what looked like a wedding ring hanging from a chain.

My hand stroked the ring. Had he lost someone like I had? 

The sound of a doorknob turning made me jump, but instinct took over and instead of leaping on the table and playing dead my finger nails clung to the ceiling and my feet found friction on the brick wall. My head whipped around, and I hissed at the door before I even realized what I was doing.

Jean stood in the doorway. He didn’t look afraid. His back pressed the door shut, and approached me like he might approach a wounded wolf, like he knew I was in fight or flight and didn’t want me to bolt, because he wanted to help but want to not get mauled too. 

“So, Marco,” he breathed, raising his hands in surrender as he approached. “You’re not dead.”

His words calmed me down and I dropped back to the floor.

“Uh, yeah…about that…”

He shrugged. “I’ll let you stay here until night, alright? You don’t want to leave right now. It’s noon.”

I hadn’t even glanced at the clock. I’d “killed” myself at eight PM, just late enough that I could safely walk outside, but early enough I thought I’d been in and out of the morgue before dawn. He must have kept me waiting working on the cadaver before me longer than I had thought. Vampires liked to joke about having no sense of time, but it was really, unfortunately true. 

“You – this has happened to you before?” I asked him

“Not to me. I was told it might when I started working here. It happen once in a while in morgues.”

“Oh,” I responded, rubbing the back of my neck and feeling a bit embarrassed. Sometimes I forgot how much humans picked up on, it’d been so long since I’d been one. 

“Yeah,” Jean said, “So, stay, okay? What type of blood do you need? I’ll get some.”

“You will?” 

He nodded.

“Um, O, if you have it,” I said, smelling him again and feeling my throat burn. I felt bad because O was a universal donor, but maybe he’d give me expired blood. I could deal with tofu-ish blood for now. Maybe this was what it was like to order mediocre fast food at a drive-through or hotdog stand.

He smiled. “Okay. I’ll go get it.”

“You’re not gonna tell anyone are you?” I blurted, suddenly feeling the itch to bite him. Not enough to kill him – just knock him out.

Maybe turn him so that I’d have someone to spend the next few centuries with, or whatever.

He was too cute to grow old.

And he did say that he couldn’t find peace with death.

So maybe – I was getting _so_ far ahead of myself. 

“No one would believe me,” he explained, smiling. As he turned, he added, “I haven’t eaten yet either. I’ll grab my lunch too.”

“Uh, okay.” I couldn’t help my grin. It had been a long, long time since I’d eaten out with another man. By the sound of Jean’s accelerated heartbeat, I figured he hadn’t either. Being a mortician had to be nearly as lonely as being a vampire, right?

As I watched Jean walk out through the door, still smiling, I wondered if we wouldn’t have to be lonely anymore.


	7. Mermaid AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean almost drowns one morning while he's swimming alone, until Marco rescues him. Not long after, Jean realizes Marco has a tail and well...mermaids are real, apparently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is being made into it's own multi-chapter fic. It's title is Part of Your World. 
> 
> The reason I still have this one shot in this fic is because all of these one shots were given to me as prompts on my tumblr, and I want to keep them together.

At the very brink of dawn, I’d jumped out of bed, yanking on my wetsuit and running out the door without even eating breakfast. The nearest beach was less than a mile from my house, but I couldn’t search for him in such a public area, even if no one would be up yet. The trek up the coast to a rockier, secluded area lasted over twenty minutes. By the time I reached there, my calves were aching with the exertion and my chest was heaving, gasping for breath.

I’d rushed all the way here to sit and wait. Hurry up and stop. Because all I could do now, was plop down in the sandiest area I could find, catch my breath, and gaze toward the horizon.

Early June was the time of year the water’s temperature rose just enough to be bearable for human swimmers, but I’d been coming here every morning since May first, just in case. Marco had warned me that they didn’t plan the day they migrated back north. They felt an instinct, an urge deep inside of them to swim far away, and that kept them alive. Of course, they could swim in colder water than I could, and they could be showing up any day.

With each passing moment without seeing him, the longing in my chest grew. I hadn’t seen him since September.

Sometimes, I feared I had hallucinated seeing him, I’d made him up.

But I hadn’t hallucinated the scar on my chest.

Last summer, mid-July, I had driven out here before work. I didn’t normally swim that early in the day, and I never went swimming in the ocean without someone else there, or at the very least knowing that I’d gone swimming. But the night before I had been dumped, and I’d hardly gotten to swim in the ocean all year because we’d been having an especially rainy summer. So that morning, unwilling to risk that it would storm later that day, I’d driven out to the beach, telling myself I’d only take a dip. A twenty minute swim. I’d swim to the small island that was just visible from the beach, then back, and my itch to be enveloped in water would be satiated for a time.

I never made it to the island on my own. Halfway out, a violent shock shot through my chest and shoulder. I’d sucked in water. My arm had gone numb, I couldn’t breathe, and the water began to rise over my head as I sunk. The last thing I remembered was opening my eyes under the water, tasting the salt, and gazing at the sun through the surface of the water. The panic I first felt when I began to drown subsided with the pain from not being able to breath, and for a moment I just existed, hovering in the water.

I was going to die.

And I thought about the breakup, and thought about how I was twenty two years old and had yet to find a single person in the world who understood me, yet to find a single job that was worth putting myself through every day, yet to find a single passion that was worth living for besides swimming – which I could only do to a certain extent, despite spending every night of my life dreaming of the possibility of one day breathing under water and never returning to the surface – and I thought that somehow, that I was okay with death. In that moment, my world was below the surface and the last thing I’d ever see with my eyes was the waves rolling overhead.

And I was okay with that.

But, just as my eyes had begun to droop, and my head felt like it was going to explode, and I could no longer move any one of my limbs…

I heard singing. A melodic, haunting voice that enraptured me. If I hadn’t already been drowning, I would have never breathed again if it meant hearing that voice with more clarity.

Heaven. So I hadn’t, after all, done enough sinning in my life to not make it to heaven.

My eyes sealed shut, and I even smiled.

When I opened them again, the sky flew high above my head and the sand was soft underneath me. The waves crashed just out of sight. Water spray blew against my feet. Seagulls squawked and overgrown grass rustled between the rocks.

All at once, I gasped in all the air my lungs could hold and flung myself into a sitting position. The land in the distance was the beach I knew well, and all around me turquois water lapped at the shore. I was on the island.

“You were stung by a jelly fish,” someone said, in the most crystalline, musical voice I’d ever heard. His accent was thick, and I couldn’t place where it came from. “They’re such pests.”

My head swung around in search for my companion, when I noticed a man sprawled out on the very edge of the shore. Waves rolled over his brown skin as is freckles ate up the sun that shined so bright it was blinding.

“Don’t worry,” he said, turning to look at me with molten brown eyes, “I took care of it.”

Instinctually, I glanced at my chest. A massive, reddened scar ripped through my skin like the cracks in desert earth. It was hideous, but I felt no pain.

“You peed on me?” I asked. As far as I knew, that was the only way to aid a jelly fish sting outside of a hospital.

He chuckled. “What? Is that what you do?”

“Well, it’s not what _I_ do but it’s – wait, what did you do then?”

“I touched it.”

I stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate.

“My skin secretes a chemical that protects me from jelly fish stings,” he explained, “All mermaids have it.”

I rolled my eyes. He peed on me and he was being a dick about it. “Is this a joke to you?”

In response he shook his head. He gestured behind him, as he eased himself out of the water. He struggled scooting up the sand, and a moment later I understood why.

“What the fuck!” I’d screamed, gawking at his luminescent, silvery tail as it flopped against the wet shore. Upon further inspection, the gills flapping shut on his neck became apparent too.

“Sorry, if my tail startled you. I would have left but I wanted to make sure you’d wake up.”

A moment passed as my heart settled. I was probably still in shock. All I could do at first was blink, but finally I said, “Oh…um, it’s okay?”

“I thought humans had skin like mine, but I guess not, huh?”

I huffed out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, you could say that. Are you – okay, so…”

“Yeah, we’re real.”

“Oh,” I replied, “Okay?”

“I’m Marco.” He smiled at me, and he looked so happy to be talking to me that I didn’t mind if he existed. In fact, I was glad he did.

“Jean.”

We’d spent the entire day on the island. Mostly, I asked him questions and he explained them to me while his tail swirled around in the shallow bay of the island. No, not all mermaids hated humans. Mermaids hated humans that colonized land that didn’t belong to them, or polluted waters they didn’t live in, or overfished animals that were sacred in their culture.

So, in conclusion, they hated most men that had ever come in contact with the ocean.

And no, mermaids didn’t swim around seducing sailors so that they could sink ships and kill them. “Well, some probably do,” Marco had chuckled in response to my question, “but I don’t know what their problem is.”

When it had been time for me to swim back – it was dusk, and I couldn’t swim in the dark – I’d asked Marco if I could see him again. He’d hesitated, for the first time since I’d met him looking anxious. “I’m not really supposed to form relationships with humans,” he explained, “but only because it risks our exposure.” He’d explained earlier that they lived deep in the depths of the ocean to avoid contact with humans, because they feared being hunted. Which, I’d admitted, was probably a fair thing to fear. “But…you’re not like other humans.”

“How so?” 

He’d shrugged. “Because you won’t want to tell people about me. It’s not in your nature.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you hate people as much as mer hate people.”

He was right. During our conversation, Marco asked questions about the surface. I’d brushed over a lot of details, sighing often and telling him not to get his hopes up. Looking back, I didn’t know if I’d said a single positive thing about life on the ground – other than I lived near the ocean, and could swim whenever I wanted. He asked me if people that lived further inland could swim, and I explained public pools and baths to him, which he found fascinating. Especially the concept of bubble bath, which he insisted must be impossible because bubbles popped and you couldn’t possibly store them in a bottle.

“I know you won’t tell.” It wasn’t a question, but it wasn’t a threat either. He just trusted I wouldn’t, and I didn’t. He swam behind me back to the shore, insuring I reached the coast safely. Then I met him there every morning and evening for the rest of the summer and throughout September.

Until the day he explained to me, “Winter’s coming. I have to migrate back home.”

“Home?”

“I believe it’s near the land you’d call Haiti. Or Jamaica. Somewhere in there.” That explained his accent. “I’ll be back when the water is warm in the north again.”

He’d kissed me, and I’d learned all the reasons sailors warned each other about Mermaids, because he’d given me one kiss and I knew I’d never kiss another pair of lips again, even if that was the last kiss I’d ever be given.

Then he’d gone, disappearing into the ocean, nothing but a flash of silver.

Now, I rested a hand against my chest. Underneath my wetsuit was the only bit of evidence I had that he existed.

Until the sun rose, and the sky faded from orange to pink to blue, and the glare off the waves sparkled silver.

A gasp, a laugh, and then a musical voice.

“Jean!”

My heart sang at the sight of him, and I inhaled like I’d been drowning all winter and my head had only just broken the surface. I rushed into the shallow waves, and Marco wrapped me in his arms. Underneath the water, his kissed me, and he kissed me under there for so long, supplying me with the breath I needed with each open-mouthed kiss.

The dreams I’d had since I was little were made reality by him.

We sat up. “I came home early. I missed you too much.”

His body was shivering, his skin was tight. I stroked his back and arms with my hands creating friction.

“You’re cold.”

“Freezing,” he sputtered, through chattering teeth. “But I’ll get used to it.” 

I laughed, but interrupted myself with a gasp because I had an idea.

“What if,” I began, “You came home with me for a while? Just a day or two.”

“Where would I go?” he asked, gazing at the land with the same wonder I had the first time I saw the ocean.

“I have a hot tub in my backyard.” He knew what that was, I’d explained it to him last summer. “And a fence. No one would see you. I could fill the bed of my truck with water,” and to this, his eyebrows knitted, because I hadn’t explained cars to him in any great detail. “Never mind. I have a way to get you home. Want to come?”

His eyes widened. He nodded, before dunking my head under the water to kiss me some more.


	8. Vet AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco brings his kitten to the vet so often he's surprised to bump into a new, and very handsome vet named Jean.

The veterinarian’s assistant had been examining Titan for at least ten minutes. She’d weighed him, taking his temperature – despite his protesting – and asked me a series of questions.

“Is he on any medications?” she’d asked, gesturing to my kitten.

“No.”

“Is he de-clawed?”

“No?” It wasn’t meant to sound like a question, but I was so shocked people were still declawing their cats! It was inhumane! I could never imagine declawing Titan, no matter how much he liked to climb up my curtains and claw at my furniture. Nothing in my house was worth as much as his life anyway, and I didn’t have a lot of company.

“Has he had all of his shots?” she asked.

“Of course.”

She continued to ask more questions, this time while placing a stethoscope against Titan’s chest and a flashlight in his ears.

When she was done, she said, “Well, the vet will be right out.”

She glanced at Titan again, petted him, and he meowed. Then he jumped off the table and hid in the corner. He’d cried on the whole way over, climbing all over the car and even on the dashboard because I couldn’t stand the thought of putting him in a kennel. Cars were already so terrifying for him, all he could do was pant, and meow at all the nearby passing cars. Putting him in a cage would probably scare him to death.

Several minutes passed. I sat on a bench, tapping my feet and tracing the freckles on my hand, trying not to panic. If this was a time-sensitive issue, why would the doctor take so long to come out?

But when the doctor stepped into the room, closing the door and smiling at Titan, I forgot to be mad at him. He was a little shorter than me, slimmer too, but despite having harsh facial features his smile at Titan was genuine and kind. He picked Titan up with even more care than I would have, and even though Titan had been whining a moment ago, the vet itched behind his ears and Titan began purring.

The vet glanced at me. “Marco, right? I’m Jean”

He reached out to shake my hand, and his palm was warm and soft. No wonder Titan liked it.

“You were here a few weeks ago for the – oh, the sneezing?”

His question caught me off guard, because I _was_ here then, but I knew I’d never seen him before. I’d remember his blond under cut and heated gaze. I’d _especially_ remember that crooked grin, because it’d probably be on my mind all the way home and maybe all night and for another week too.

“Yeah, but,” I said, “I had a different doctor.”

I could have _sworn_ the vet looked embarrassed but, maybe I was seeing what I wanted to see.

“Oh, I know…I was taking care of a dog at the time, but…everyone in the clinic knows you. And I’m new, so they pointed you out. Told me you were a regular here.”

I bit my lip, wondering if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

“Anyway,” he said, changing the subject and looking away from me, “What’s wrong with Titan, here?”

Nothing, at the moment, it appeared. He was purring and rolling on to his back on the small examination table so that the vet could rub his belly.

But then, sure enough, Titan’s little body jerked and he meowed like he was crying from it.

“That,” I said, pointing at him. My heartrate jumped a bit at the sight. I hated seeing him uncomfortable. “He keeps having these, like, little seizures or something! Is it possible to have an epileptic cat?”

Jean chuckled. “How long has this been going on?”

As if to give another example, Titan’s body jerked again and he hissed, pawing at the air as if to fight off the internal attack. My heart ached thinking I’d lose him and he had no idea what was happening right now.

“Like – I don’t know, and hour or two? I came as soon as I could,” I reassured, fearing he’d think I was a careless pet owner that had procrastinated bring Titan to the vet.

“Did you feed him more than usual?” Jean asked.

“Um…I’m not sure,” I said, “I try to give him half a cup of food, but maybe there was a bit more?”

Titan’s claws sunk into Jean’s palm. He didn’t even flinch. Just one by one, pried Titan’s little claws out of his skin. Then he itched behind his ears again.

“Uh-huh. And did you give him more water?”

“No.”

“You sure? He hasn’t been drinking out of the toilet, or jumping in the sink?”

My eyes widened as I considered all the possible places in my house he might have drunk water from. “Oh – God, I don’t know? Would that seriously hurt him? Could he get sick from toilet water? I didn’t even – but of course he could! Why didn’t I think of that?”

I’d stood up, to get a better look at Titan and pull him into my arms. My only way of apologizing to him now.

Jean chuckled. “No, probably not.”

“Then what is it?”

He smiled. “Titan has hiccups.”

“What?”

“I’m guessing he drank or ate too much at once.”

“So he’s…”

“Just fine. Perfectly healthy. Scared of the vet – can’t blame him – but healthy.”

My face heated up as I gazed at the vet’s amused expression. If I wasn’t so relieved, I might have even been annoyed, but for the time being I was grateful.

“Thank you, _so_ much!”

He nodded. “Didn’t really do anything, but sure.”

“No really! I was so worried.”

“I could tell.”

I scooped up Titan close to my chest. “So, we’re free to go?”

“Yeah, but.”

“What?” And my whole heart froze in fear of some string being attached to his health.

“I mean,” Jean said, rubbing the back of his neck and looking away from me. “Just don’t ever hesitate to bring him in, okay? Even if you think it’s a little thing – even just for a checkup. You never know.”

“Really? Usually the vets tell me not to worry so much,” I said, chuckling, “They tell me not to come in and waste my money when there isn’t even a problem.”

“Oh, well,” he said, and this time he was blushing. “If they don’t want to take care of Titan, I will. Just, you know, ask for me, okay? I’ll take care of him.”

I arched an eyebrow at him, getting the feeling he was holding something back, but nodded anyway. “Well…thank you so much. That’s a really kind offer.”

He shrugged, waving it off. “Someone has to do it…I guess.”


	9. Heart Transplant AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco has been sick with a weak heart his whole life. After finally receiving a heart transplant, he wakes from his surgery to look for Jean. But he can't find him.

My first few waking moments after the surgery, I thought of Jean before I even bothered to rejoice in the fact that I was alive. My surgery hadn’t failed. No issues had come up.

Last night, before Jean had left my home and before the pager the doctors had given to me to let me now if a heart had become available had begun beeping, Jean and I had been lying in bed.

We were both panting, caked in sweat and shivering against each other in the aftermath of being tangled together, passionately, for perhaps an hour too long. My heart was going off like a firework trapped inside of a garbage bin. Jean’s hand had rested against my chest, and the look of worry in hazel eyes couldn’t be ignored. We’d pushed it too far. Months had passed and I had breathed easily, comfortably, and I’d even gone on walks in the early morning hours with him. I’d thought I could handle it, and after days of begging Jean to take the risk, I’d finally made him give in.

“It’s okay,” I whispered to him. I rested my hand over his. “It’s calming, see? It’s already better.”

I tried to breathe evenly for him.

He didn’t look convinced.

“We can’t do it again.”

I nodded. “Of course.” Fuck that. I’d be begging him again in a week. I already wanted his hands and mouth on me again.

We lay in silence for a long moment. Jean combed his fingers through my hair with one hand, and traced the freckles along my shoulder with the other. It tickled, and I giggled in his embrace. He smiled.

“If you were healthy,” he started.

“Oh, Jean, not again,” I groaned. At least once a week I had to veer him away from this subject. I wasn’t healthy. No sense in torturing himself over the _what-ifs_ and _if-you-coulds_ and _if-life-was-fairs_.

“Hey,” he said, kissing my forehead. “Humor me. Just once.”

“Nope.”

“I gave you what you wanted.” He gestured to our bodies. Our legs were still intertwined. His skin felt so good against mine.

Frowning, I sighed in defeat. “Fine.”

“If you were healthy, what would you do with your life?” 

“Marry you.”

For whatever reason, this didn’t make him happy. “Besides that.”

Now I had to think. Beyond marrying Jean, I hadn’t let my daydreams wander that far. “I’d travel. I can’t go on planes. I think I’d be happy just to be on a plane.”

Jean’s hand cupped my cheek and stroked my cheekbone. “What else?”

“I guess…I’d want to go to school. Become something – I don’t know. I’d do something that left a mark on the world, you know? Make my life mean something. That’s what I hate the most about being sick. I’m going to die, and it won’t even mean anything. The world won’t even notice.”

Jean cleared his throat. “I would.”

“If I could stop you from noticing, I would.”

“Would you have kids?” he asked.

“Don’t you mean ‘would we’?”

“Right,” he blurted. “Yeah. Would we?”

“I’d hope so.” The thought made me smile. Even though I’d never told Jean, I’d always wanted to have a kid. If nothing else, give my parents a grandchild that would actually live to grow old. They deserved it.

“Anything else?” 

I shook my head. “I’d be happy to live no matter what.”

“Promise?” 

I looked into his eyes, and leaned into kiss him before I said, “Promise.”

We fell asleep in each arms shortly after that, not waking until Jean’s alarm went off at one AM. He had left that night, only saying that “he wished he didn’t have to do this”. He had two jobs. One of them was the night shift and he always had to leave me about four AM no matter how badly I needed him. It hurt every single time he left, more than feeling like I might die in my sleep did. 

I wanted him by my side if that happened, and every time he left, I knew it couldn’t.

But now I wouldn’t have to.

My pager went off last night shortly after Jean went to work. I’d called him a number of times, but he couldn’t get to his phone until his break. So I left a number of text messages letting him know that I’d driven to the hospital.

Only after contacting him had I called the rest of my family.

Right now, they were sleeping in the chairs surrounding my hospital bed.

But I couldn’t see jean.

I glanced at the clock. It was ten AM. Jean would have been tired after his shift, but I couldn’t imagine that he’d go to bed without even coming to see me in the hospital. He spent every moment he wasn’t at work with me.

How could he?

After a half hour of wondering, a nurse came into the hospital room to check on me. She handed me another blanket and a tray full of pre-prepared breakfast.

“Excuse me,” I said, and she looked at me with kind eyes.

“Yes?”

“Has my boyfriend visited?”

She quirked an eyebrow at me. “What was his name? He would have had to check with the front desk.”

“Jean Kirstein,” I told her.

She nodded. “I’ll go check for you.”

She was gone for _five hours_.

When she came back, my surgeon followed behind her.

“What did you say his name was?” my surgeon asked.

“Jean Kirstein,” I repeated, trying not to sound too peeved they’d taken so long. Trying not to sob because five more hours had passed and he still hadn’t shown.

“Marco,” my surgeon began, “I’m afraid your donor’s name was Jean. He killed himself last night. When the ambulance arrived they confirmed that his heart would –”

But I didn’t hear the rest. I reached my hand up so that I could rest it against my chest, feeling the heartbeat reach up to meet my palm underneath my flesh. My whole world sunk in on itself, until my very existence was existing inside of me. The room blurred and the doctors rushed in as my heart – Jean’s heart, began beating at an alarmingly high rate.

… 

Later, when they released me from the hospital, I went to Jean’s place first. Somehow, I thought he might still be there. Or maybe, if I could only touch his clothes, and lay in his bed, this would all somehow make sense to me.

When I walked into his bedroom, it looked as it always did. The bed was unmade, clothes lay on the floor, the closet door was open and so were half his drawers. Drawings were taped to the walls and unfinished doodles were rolled up on his desk. 

On his pillow rested a sheet of paper.

The new heart inside of me - the one I caressed with my palm unconsciously every few minutes now, because it was his and I only wanted to hold him - jolted. I loved that, in a way. It was his heart, but it reacted to the way I was feeling. If only Jean could know how I felt. If he could still be here, somehow, because I had his heart with me.

I reached for the note and held it up.

_Dear, Marco_

_I know you won’t understand. A few months ago I went to the doctor to have them check my heart. I needed to know if it was a match. When I found out it was, I couldn’t ignore something like that, you know? How could something like that be a coincidence? And you know I’m not that type of guy, I’d never call something a miracle. But God damn it, Marco, this wasn’t a coincidence._

_If you had died, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. You would have died because of me. And then I would have had to live without you with me for the rest of my life, with the heart that would have saved you._

_And I lived for you Marco. Do you understand now, why I did what I did? I was already living for you, already living to keep you alive, and that was all I ever wanted. For you to live, and live your life happily and fully and to have everything you dreamed of. You promised me you’d make that happen if you could be healthy, and once you did, I had nothing else to live for._

_So, try to understand, alright? My heart was yours from the beginning. Just keep your promise._

_I love you,_

_Jean_

My hands curled around the paper, holding it close to my chest. Tears fell and I wiped them away. I had two choices. Keep my promise, or don’t. I could break my promise just to spite him, but this heart had only just been placed inside me and it had already been through so much heartache.

I decided I wanted to keep my promise. I wanted to take care of this heart, because it was Jean’s heart and I could never hurt him. 

As if Jean was relieved, the heart I carried inside of me slowed to a steady rhythm.


End file.
